Got You Covered!

We’ve already seen which books The Rap Sheet chose as their top picks for 2014, now come have a peek at the contenders (and final winner) of the top crime fiction covers. This is always a terrific field!

The final blow-by-blow is here.

This Just In… Saint Wally by Courtney Taylor

Walter Matthews kills himself and arrives in Heaven’s Waiting Room, where he witnesses a misdeed that quickly culminates in the abduction of the Almighty. 

Getting God back is a responsibility charged to Creation’s Vice President, Jesus H. Christ, who isn’t quite sure he’s up to the job. So begins an interDimensional adventure with a cast of trillions, in which Jesus and Walter have to restore the Good Lord to His throne before All Existence is destroyed.

You can order Saint Wally here. Learn more about author Courtney Taylor on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Children’s Books: The Last of the Spirits by Chris Priestley

You remember that scene in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol where Scrooge asks about two children, a boy and a girl, huddling under the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present? The Ghost tells him that the children are Ignorance and Want.

In The Last of the Spirits (Bloomsbury) they are real children, street kids who, in fact, sneaked into Scrooge’s home while he was off with the spirits and took refuge in his dining room, which is at least a little warmer than the streets. The story is told from the viewpoint of the boy, Sam and his sister Lizzie. They once had a home and parents, but their father died in debt and their mother soon after.

Sam is angry with the world, especially one Ebenezer Scrooge, who had snubbed them when they pleaded for a little money. So that night, when they are trying to sleep in the graveyard and run into the ghost of Jacob Marley, on his way to save Scrooge’s soul, they follow, with Sam thinking that a piece of lead piping applied to the old miser’s head might improve him greatly and get them some of the money he refused them the first time.

Sam, too, it seems, needs and benefits from visits from the three spirits...

This is a nice take on the original novella, with Scrooge’s story happening on the side, with the children watching and listening to bits and Sam being a little irritated with the Ghost of Christmas Present for using them as props in the show he is staging for Scrooge. It probably means more if you are familiar with the original story, but can be read by itself and, who knows, might encourage children to look for the original story once they’re old enough to follow it. ◊


Sue Bursztynski lives in Australia, where she works as a teacher-librarian. She has written several books for children and young adults, including Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly and, most recently, the YA novel Wolfborn. Her blog The Great Raven can be found at http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com.

This Just In… Caesar’s Son by Jon Zackon

Fourteen year old Arlus dreams of leaving behind his abusive stepfather and joining the legions as a cavalry officer. But when a tax collector from Rome rolls into town, a chain of dramatic and violent events leave Arlus begging for his life.

To save her son, the boy’s mother is forced to admit who his father really is: the Dictator of Rome, Julius Caesar. In an instant, Arlus’ life is altered forever. Seeing the potential for profit, the tax collector Maxinius takes Arlus to Rome in a bid to have him recognized by Caesar as his son and heir. Thrown into a whirlwind of politics, alliances and Patrician society, Arlus prepares to meet his father.

But the day set for Arlus to meet Caesar is the fateful Ides of March, and his meeting with the great ruler doesn’t go quite as planned: his father is murdered before his eyes by traitors within the Senate. Suddenly in even more danger than before, Arlus is forced to flee.

As Rome prepares for civil war in the wake of Caesar’s assassination, Arlus returns home to a conflict of his own: a mob of bandits threaten Rezzia, and Arlus must muster every ounce of his strength and cunning to defeat them and save those he loves. But will he be able to live up to his father’s reputation?

“A brilliantly told story.” -- Robert Foster, bestselling author of The Lunar Code.

Jon Zackon is also the author of A Taste For Killing. He was born in South Africa but has spent most of his working life as a journalist on British national newspapers. He currently lives in the UK.

You can order Caesar’s Son here. Visit author Jon Zackon on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Art & Culture: Streisand: In the Camera Eye

Almost from the moment she appeared on the scene in the early 1960s, Barbra Streisand had been a icon.

At first, she was a curiosity. How could a skinny girl from Brooklyn with a stubborn nose and slightly crossed eyes ever make it in show business? Well, we started with that voice of hers. And with a voice like that, who cares what she looks like?

Except people did care. And by the end of her first public performance, she began to take on the sheen and luster of a star, as well as all the trappings. People began to see her beauty. Magazines began to flaunt her fashion sense. She wasn’t just a singer, not just an actress. She was a force.

Streisand: In the Camera Eye (Harry N. Abrams), the new book by frequent Streisand biographer James Spada, examines her life in a series of 170 photographs, many never before published. Instead of recounting her life in words, he recounts it in images accompanied by short contextual essays. But it’s the photos here that amaze.

Here’s Barbra very early on, looking more than a little like a Modigliani painting. Here she is on stage in “Funny Girl,” and then later in the movie. Here are images from her 60s TV specials, as well as Hello Dolly; What’s Up, Doc?; The Way We Were; A Star is Born; Yentl; and all the rest. There are also photos from album cover shoots, some photos from magazines, concerts, and more -- a true chronicle of the woman and her work. Both career overview (50 years and counting) and photo essay galore, Streisand: In the Camera Eye is a collection of images that, taken together, form the portrait of a woman who is always the same yet constantly changing. Where early shots show us her shy vulnerability and her less-than-assured presence in front the camera, others reveal her increasing comfort, and later her embrace of it. ◊

This Just In… All Meat: A Redneck Meets LSD-25 by John Aalborg

All Meat is the first book, once lost, in John Aalborg’s Schaffner Family crime and adventure trilogy.

All Meat: A Redneck Meets LSD-25 is not only the drama of a struggling young white family in Miami during the 1960s, but how a normal, cash-strapped husband and wife deal with psychedelic drugs and racial integration.

The adventures, the scary romantic stuff, the South Beach hippies, the changing Miami neighborhood during integration, the free sex, and the casual attitude toward marijuana and other psychedelic drugs are all representative of the time.

All Meat is the prequel to Harry & Ivory and Lowboy #22.

You can order All Meat here. Visit author John Aalborg on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Top Crime Fiction of 2014

What were the top works of crime fiction in 2014? At The Rap Sheet, six top critics opine. And here’s a hint: expect to be at least a bit surprised!

This Just In… The Coconut Latitudes: Secrets, Storms and Survival in the Caribbean by Rita M. Gardner

The Coconut Latitudes is a memoir about a childhood in paradise, a journey into unexpected misery, and a twisted path to redemption and truth.

Leaving a successful career in the U.S., a father makes the fateful decision to settle his wife and two young daughters on an isolated beach in the Dominican Republic. He plants ten thousand coconut seedlings and declares they are the luckiest people alive.

In reality, the family is in the path of hurricanes and in the grip of a brutal dictator. Against a backdrop of shimmering palms and kaleidoscope sunsets, a crisis causes the already fragile family to implode. The Coconut Latitudes is a haunting, lyrical memoir of surviving a reality far from the envisioned Eden, the terrible cost of keeping secrets, and the transformative power of truth and love.

You can order The Coconut Latitudes here. Visit author Rita M. Gardner on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Neal Stephenson Named “Chief Futurist” at Magic Leap

Novelist Neal Stephenson (Quicksilver, Snow Crash) has announced that he will join the hot and mysterious tech startup, Magic Leap. From NPR:

Stephenson announced that he will be joining the startup Magic Leap as the company's "chief futurist." While the company itself remains something of a mystery, the Wall Street Journal reports that "the startup is developing its own eyeglasses-like device, different from Google Glass, designed to project computer-generated images over a real-life setting." In other words, the technology is said to try to blend seamlessly what's real with what's virtual—not unlike some of the technologies in Stephenson's book.

Though the company has yet to produce anything, Google and several other tech titans have been big backers of the project, to the tune of $542 million in investments.

“I'm fascinated by the science, but not qualified to work on it,” Stephenson wrote in a post on the Magic Leap blog. “Where I hope I can be of use is in thinking about what to do with this tech once it is available to the general public.”

This Just In… The Holy Mark: The Tragedy of a Fallen Priest by Gregory Alexander

In The Holy Mark, a disgraced and exiled Catholic priest from a powerful New Orleans family ponders his future and reflects on his 25 years in the priesthood.

Father Tony probably should have never been a priest. With his family’s money, courtesy of ties to the New Orleans mob, he could have pursued his interest in literature or even worked with young boys -- only free of all those silly Church strictures. But there was no priest in the Miggliore family, much to the shame of his immigrant Italian grandmother. So at his birth, when the old woman beheld a peculiar mark on his head and declared it to be a sign from God -- a “segno sacro” in the only language she knew -- this grandson’s destiny was set.

Those marked by God, though, are often marked by men as well: Father Tony’s jealous uncle will never forgive him for finding favor with the Miggliore matriarch. And with his ties to the city’s Catholic hierarchy, he’ll plot to destroy his nephew if it takes the rest of his life. Meanwhile Father Tony is determined to outwit his uncle and the Church, even if he has to conceal his identity and prowl the streets of New Orleans by night to do it.

Family, power, and revenge, The Holy Mark is the story of one reluctant priest caught between the cynicism of his own Southern upbringing and the political machinations of the Roman Catholic Church.

You can order The Holy Mark here. Visit author Gregory Alexander on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Cookbook: Madeleines by Barbara Feldman Morse

I’m a sucker for a good cookie, and I’m always looking for new things to bake. Madeleines are my new passion, and Madeleines: Elegant French Tea Cakes to Bake and Share (Quirk Books) by Barbara Feldman Morse is the book I’ve been using in recent weeks, much to the delight and dismay of my waistline -- and the waistlines of my friends and family. (Sorry, everyone!) 

In a word: Wow. I’d always thought madeleines were hard to make. How could that lovely golden sponge, even unadorned, be such a snap? But you know what? They totally are. Barbara Feldman Morse makes it easy. Along with recipes, she tells you exactly what you need, her own little secrets, supplies and where to buy them, and the many different ways you can decorate your madeleines to make dinner guests swoon in anticipation.

The dozens of variations include classic madeleines, cream cheese madeleines, chai tea madeleines, madeleines au chocolat, banana pecan madeleines, blueberry cream madeleines, dark chocolate espresso madeleines, Kentucky Derby madeleines, gruyere and rosemary madeleines, and many, many more.

 Published just in time for all those holiday parties you have to bring something to, this little gem of a cookbook will keep you busy for quite some time, indulging in your little French cookie fantasies. And it’ll inspire more than a few New Year’s resolutions. ◊

This Just In… The Write Crowd: Literary Citizenship & The Writing Life by Lori A. May

Writing may be a solitary profession, but it is also one that relies on a strong sense of community. The Write Crowd offers practical tips and examples of how writers of all genres and experience levels contribute to the sustainability of the literary community, the success of others, and to their own well-rounded writing life.

Through interviews and examples of established writers and community members, readers are encouraged to immerse themselves fully in the literary world and the community-at-large by engaging with literary journals, reading series and public workshops, advocacy and education programs, and more.

In contemporary publishing, the writer is expected to contribute outside of her own writing projects. Editors and publishers hope to see their writers active in the community, and the public benefits from a more personal interaction with authors. Yet the writer must balance time and resources between deadlines, day jobs, and other commitments.

The Write Crowd demonstrates how writers may engage with peers and readers, and have a positive effect on the greater community, without sacrificing writing time.

You can order The Write Crowd here. Visit author Lori A. May on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Art & Culture: Star Wars Art: Posters

Yes, I know: Who needs another book about Star Wars? Well, it turns out I did, and maybe you do too. Because Star Wars Art: Posters (Harry N. Abrams) is a different kind of Star Wars book.

We all know that George Lucas’ space saga has inspired countless novels, toys, musical interpretations, other movies and TV shows, and more. The reach of the film seems endless. But one area that needed a bit more exploration is posters.

Like all movies, each film has had its lobby posters, and this book features all of them. But even better are the other posters that the films inspired along the way. Some were done by heavy-hitter artists like Drew Struzan and Roger Kastel, some by very talented fans, and many by people in-between.

While many artists were paid, some did their work because it was fun and because Star Wars moved them. And moved is what you will be when you get an up-close-and-personal look at the 120 posters in this book. You’ll find the classics, as I mentioned, but you’ll also find some of the sketches that came first, the little explorations that became the posters we know so well. The errors, too, and the first drafts. You’ll find art from all over the world, as well as versions of posters you may already know, concept drawings and paintings that helped shape the Star Wars universe, and much more.

These are posters used to advertise movies, radio programs, TV shows, gallery exhibitions, video games, and on and on. What they posters all have in common is that they bring the drama to life: the characters, the action, and sometimes the larger questions about life in that galaxy far, far away. 

Rather than a collection of posters, which always feature creative blocks at the bottom (the credits), Star Wars Art: Posters does away with that distraction, treating these works of art as what they are: art. I was surprised at how much difference that made when looking at these images. They come alive truly alive, and tell a story that we all know and in a way that’s fresh. ◊

This Just In… Bones Along the Hill Nancy Sartor

Neva Oakley is a funeral facial restorationist with a legendary skill at making the dead look alive. But for all her talent, she can never bring back Gray Ledbetter, her first love, who took his own life ten years ago.

Davis Pratt, too, is consumed. Long ago his younger brother disappeared, and Davis won’t give up hope. Perhaps that’s why he and Neva are such a good couple. Or perhaps that’s why they can’t move forward. Then the search leads them to the Oakley cemetery and a murder tied to a human trafficking ring. Suddenly, impossible crimes threaten both family and friends, crimes that cannot be ignored. Not even the Nashville PD can keep Neva safe, but if she and Davis succeed, together they just might solve all their mysteries and free each other to embrace their future.

You can order Bones Along the Hill here. Visit author Nancy Sartor on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Review: The Art of Deception

Seeing is believing, so they say. But I’m betting “they” never saw The Art of Deception: Illusions to Challenge the Eye and the Mind  (Imagine).

More than a collection of optical illusions (though it surely is that), The Art of Deception features painting, photography and graphic design that’s made to make you look twice. Or three times. These are works that scream out to you: “Hold on a sec, all is not what it seems.”

Take Liu Bolin’s photograph of a small wooded area near Beijing. Looks innocent enough, until you notice the sly presence of a man standing right in front of you. Is he painted to blend in? Is he transparent? Or Ben Heine’s photograph of a drawing that offers a bird’s eye perspective of a nest of what could be skyscrapers. A young man is holding the drawing in such a way that he seems to be floating above them, looking down into them. Or how about Nikita Prokhorov’s tessellation art, in which figures are intertwined in what could be endless patterns? Or Oscar Reutersvard’s impossible figure designs?

 There’s really almost too much here to marvel at, and your eyes will widen to amazed orbs as you take it all in. From Punya Mishra’s ambigram of the word “good” with the word “evil” embedded inside it, to Guido Daniele’s paintings of animals on hands, The Art of Deception is a brilliant study of how artists from across the globe see and bend the world around them. It’s not so much a game, though it can be, as it is an interpretation of the world as they see it. Their juxtapositions surprise, then illuminate, and finally provide “a-ha!” moments that leave you smiling.

This wonderful book features a foreword by John Langdon, king of the ambigram, and bite-sized essays about each work of art. They don’t give the secret of the work away, but each one offers a glimpse into the mind of the artist and a peek at what he or she is trying to accomplish within each piece. ◊

This Just In… A Viable Suspect by Barry Ruhl

For more than 30 years, retired Ontario Provincial Police Sergeant Barry Ruhl has believed that a criminal with whom he had a violent encounter early in his career might be responsible for a string of unsolved murders of young women in Ontario, including the 1959 death of 12-year-old Lynne Harper.

The only suspect ever investigated in that sensational case was 14-year-old Steven Truscott, who was convicted and sentenced to hang before being cleared almost 50 years later. But in the 1980s, Ruhl had approached his superiors with a theory about an alternative suspect in the Harper murder and other similar cases. A Viable Suspect tells the story of how Ruhl arrived at his conclusions, his frustrated attempts to prompt the OPP to thoroughly investigate Talbot and the tragic irony of how, just when it seemed police were finally taking Ruhl’s theory seriously, the suspect slipped out of reach, permanently.

You can order A Viable Suspect here. Visit author Barry Ruhl on the web here. ◊



This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

This Just In… When All Balls Drop: The Upside of Losing Everything by Heidi Siefkas

Heidi Siefkas was a happily married, globetrotting professional who seemingly had it all -- until a tree limb in New York’s Hudson River Valley struck her down, breaking her neck and leaving her unconscious. Suddenly, life as she knew it stopped. She lost her independence. She lost her career. She watched her marriage disintegrate as she confronted a trail of devastating lies about her husband’s double life.

She had lost all that mattered, but she was a survivor. She fought to restore her health, repair her broken heart, and rebuild herself. Along the way, she gained clarity about her core values, ultimately coming to a deeper understanding of what it means to have it all.

Through down-to-earth, short vignettes, When All Balls Drop shows us how it’s possible to “look up” in spite of pain, deceit, and loss. Heidi’s memoir--rich with hope and humor--inspires anyone who’s had to confront tragedy and reassess their life in the wake of life-altering events.

You can order When All the Balls Drop here. Visit author Heidi Siefkas on the web here. ◊



This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

Lost Work by Raymond Chandler Uncovered

An early work by Raymond Chandler has been discovered. Thus far, the Chandler estate is blocking publication or performance of the libretto, called The Princess and the Pedlar, as being “a very early work, and not representative of Chandler’s oeuvre. Yes, it is of course a curiosity, but we feel no more than that.”

Writing for The Guardian, former January Magazine contributing editor, Sarah Weinman, tells the fascinating story of the rediscovery of The Princess and the Pedlar at length:

The 48-page libretto to the comic opera The Princess and the Pedlar, with music by Julian Pascal, has hidden in plain sight at the library since its copyright was first registered on 29 August 1917.

The work, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian, was found in March by Kim Cooper, shortly after she published her debut novel, The Kept Girl, featuring a fictionalised Chandler in 1929 Los Angeles. 

While looking for more information about Pascal, Cooper discovered a missing link between Chandler’s English boyhood and his detective fiction: a witty, Gilbert-and-Sullivan-inflected libretto for a fantasy-tinged romance between Porphyria, daughter to the King and Queen of the Arcadians, and Beautiful Jim, a “strolling Pedlar.”

Chandler penned pithy lines for supporting players, and even foreshadowed his own crime fiction career, as when the humpback Gorboyne sings: “Criminals dyed with the deepest dyes/Hated of all the good and wise, Soaked in crime to the hair and eyes/Very unpleasant are we.”

The full piece is here.

This Just In… The Cause by Roderick Vincent

The second American Revolution will be a fire lit from an internal spark.

The year is 2022. America is on the verge of economic and social collapse. The government has made individual freedom its enemy. 

African American hacker Isse Corvus enters a black-ops training camp. He discovers the leaders are revolutionaries seeking to return the U.S. back to its Constitutional roots. Soon the camp fractures. Who is traitor? Who is patriot? Corvus learns that if he doesn’t join The Cause and help them hack the NSA’s servers, it could mean his life. If he joins, he becomes part of a conspiracy to overthrow America’s financial oligarchy. 

NSA Director Titus Montgomery is building a system to pacify America’s instigators. The President tells him that rule of law must be maintained at all costs. But what happens when martial law meets revolution? 

The Cause is a dystopian thriller taking many topical issues to the next logical level. The dense web of the NSA’s previous generation’s surveillance system has been supplanted by a new, more ruthless one. Robotic warfare, drones, quantum computers, Anonymous, the NSA, and a cast of conniving characters, this novel takes you on a manifest journey on how a new revolution could be born.

You can order The Cause here. Visit author Roderick Vincent on the web here. ◊



This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.

The Philosophy of Pratchett

Terry Pratchett as philosopher. Fans of the UK-based author’s Discworld series will not be surprised to think about Pratchett in those terms.

With more than 75 million copies of his books available around the world, he is one of our planet’s top selling writers. Forty Discworld novels have been published since the first, The Colour of Magic, was released back in 1983. But, according to The Guardian, a new about to be released book about Pratchett and his work will be the first to look at the author as the philosopher he may very well be.

Edited by philosophy professors and Pratchett fans James South and Jacob Held, the collection of essays examines questions including “Plato, the Witch, and the Cave: Granny Weatherwax and the Moral Problem of Paternalism”, “Equality and Difference: Just because the Disc Is Flat, Doesn’t Make It a Level Playing Field for All”, “Hogfather and the Existentialism of Søren Kierkegaard”, and “the Importance of Being in the Right Trouser Leg of Time”.

South, associate professor of philosophy at Marquette University, is adamant Pratchett’s novels “hold up to sustained philosophical reflection”

“Pratchett is a very smart man, a gifted writer, and understands as well as any philosopher the power of storytelling and the problems humans face in making sense of their lives and the world they live in,” South said. “Or, as Death puts it so well: ‘DO NOT PUT ALL YOUR TRUST IN ROOT VEGETABLES. WHAT THINGS SEEM TO BE MAY NOT BE WHAT THEY ARE.’ This is a truth that Pratchett relatedly acknowledges and tries to get his readers to acknowledge as well.”

You can read the full piece here.

This Just In… Leaving Montana by Thomas Whaley

Saying that Benjamin Sean Quinn had “anger issues” was an understatement. For those who knew him for the shortest amount of time, his life was in order: He was physically fit, had a great job which provided him a house in the suburbs and the material things he desired, a loving, monogamous relationship, two happy, healthy daughters and an established circle of friends. In all accounts, his life seemed perfect. But to those who knew him the longest, they knew he was an idle grenade, waiting for someone to pull the pin. 

For decades, Ben did his best to conquer his demons; to suppress the anger he accumulated towards his parents, Carmella and Sean, throughout their tumultuous marriage. Ben was their only child; forced to witness and experience things that most adults couldn’t even try to handle. He could not escape them or the anger, and no matter how hard he tried, as he matured, it became a part of him. Ben strived to end the toxic cycle and avoid adopting their pattern as part of his own life. By the time he reached his early thirties, he finally seemed to have it all under control. 

Then Ben’s father told him a “secret.” One left in Montana when he and Carmella were stationed there 40 years earlier. It would exhume the painful memories and suppressed anger that Ben had been avoiding for years and force him to relive his past in order to face his future. 

Today Benjamin Sean Quinn boards a plane to Billings, Montana. It was time to face the secret head on and let go of the anger that silently ruled his life. It would be the boldest move he ever made, ultimately changing his life and the lives of those around him."

You can order Leaving Montana here. Visit author Thomas Whaley on the web here. ◊


This Just In... is a column that shares basic information on selected titles. Titles are included at the editor’s discretion and on a first come, first served basis or for a small fee. Want to see your new book included? Ordering details are here.